a sweet victory

Tuesday

I’d had a good day. My training group had attended the roadshow at work, where our senior management team talked about the road ahead, the distance to cover, and I was inspired. I am always a believer in new beginnings, rebirth; but I have also been a cynic in many a workplace until now. I am pleased to have changed that around, and at the end of the presentation, I was one of two who spoke up – even as other colleagues ridiculed me afterward, the affirmation by others counted for a lot more.

When I left work there was beautiful sunshine, plenty of high UV and shadows, angles and geometrics for me to focus on, if only I had my SLR with me.

But I had something else on my mind: despite the concerns of friends of mine who dislike the company for its association with Hillsong, I am a fan of Gloria Jean’s – or at least, its vanilla syrup for my coffee. Last week, as a reward for getting my first-ever workplace promotion, I had thought to treat myself to a new bottle of the stuff on the way home. Only thing was, they were out of the regular one at the Liberty Towers store on Collins and Spencer, but they offered me sugar-free, and I accepted it.

On Saturday morning, when I went to make my first coffee of the day, I immediately regretted buying the artificially sweetened syrup. It was like Diet Coke compared to Coke. Not the real thing.

Although my first response was to just throw the bottle out, chalk it up as yet another of my mistakes with money, I noticed the product had a satisfaction guarantee on the label. It took a lot for me to do so as a consumer, but I decided I would take it back to them.

On Monday morning I lugged the bottle of syrup into the outlet on the corner of Bourke and King St, only to be told, “Actually what needs to happen is, you need to take this back to the store where you bought it… because all the stores are franchises.” Ah, OK, that made sense.

So after work on Tuesday, pumped full of all this good energy from my day in training, I fronted up to Liberty Towers, took the bottle out of my backpack, and explained my story.

The guy looked at me like I was talking Greek. “OK, actually I don’t know what to do with this,” he said. His issue was not only with the process of my attempted return, but the fact that I had actually opened the bottle. I explained that was how I knew I was not satisfied with it. “Perhaps you can call this number,” he suggested, looking at the Customer Satisfaction phone number on the label. It was a canny idea, I had to credit him with that. But given the lack of alternatives, I thought what the hell, I’ll call the number, I’ll make a point, damn it.

“Our guest relations actually finishes at five; it’s twenty past five now,” I was told. Guest Relations? I gave my number and was told I’d be called back the next day.

I was fuming. I wanted to smack the guy at the counter over the head with the bottle, except it was plastic – it would probably only bounce off his nut. It reminded me of Anthony Michael Hall’s character’s failed attempt to build the elephant lamp in The Breakfast Club; it was that inane, and all the more frustrating because it was so damn petty.

I left the store, and in a movie scene-worthy moment, Paul Westerberg’s twelve string acoustic guitar introduction to Unsatisfied played with perfect synchronicity on the iPhone, and as I made my way home on the tram, I watched the girl opposite me tapping her boots – I mean really stomping in her seat, eyes defocused on the middle distance , thumbs fidgeting on her iPod, and gradually my anger was dissipated as I realised I was not the only person in the world who had issues.

W1D2 (Wednesday)

I set the alarm for 3AM, to rise for my second day of C25K. True to expectation, I had hit the bed before 8PM, so seven hours would be a good sleep for me. Sleep Cycle woke me at 2:39AM.

My playlist kicked off with the madness and heavy riffs of Ministry’s NWO, and segued into Adam And The Ants’ Stand and Deliver. Its “da diddly qua qua” chorus brought to mind my teenage years in Zimbabwe, dreaming of the adult life I imagined I’d one day live: the glamour of German supercars, and Page Three pin-ups, like those which adorned the walls and ceiling of my room, only for real.

I made it to our McDonald’s, in the process of redevelopment, for my halfway mark, and on to the former Preston tram depot on St Georges Rd, which will no doubt be redeveloped some time sooner or later, too.

I used to view exercise with the polarity typical of my black and white / either/or mentality, characteristic of either my personality or my personality disorder. Now, with sudden clarity, I see exercise is my time to think, to reflect; a healthy mind in a healthy body. Only the day before I had made a mental note when I saw a groover sporting a T shirt emblazoned with the Dewarism

“Minds are like parachutes; they work best when open.”

Bust A Move came on (“so come on, fatso, and just a bust a move”), and with my man boobs jiggling, I shuffled along to Sly Fox’s Let’s Go All The Way. It was more a slog than a jog by the last few minutes, but at least I got there. I completed the task. Starting things has always been my strong point – and the first fifty metres of my runs are always strong – thanks to those “rugby quads”. Endurance and stamina are another thing though. But I’m working on that. Slowly, slowly.

I wore a tie for work, for the first time in ages. In another life I parroted my manager, and boasted that the only people who wear ties are used car salesmen. I caught the tram and as I rocked along to Korn’s Got The Life, I made a mental note to add it to an upcoming C25K playlist, for the energizing effect it had on me. Suddenly, I heard a crack, and I turned to see my fellow passenger glaring at me. He must have been wearing a heavy ring, and he’d cracked it on the window, to get my attention. I looked at him for an explanation. “It’s very loud,” was all he said.

He didn’t factor in my two double espressos and the fact I’d already been awake more than five hours. I could have just snotted him. But I didn’t, of course.

Who is more passive-aggressive – the fella who raps on the window with his ring knuckle, or the coward who retreats to the back of the tram to enjoy his music as much as he can, given the mood upset.

I waited until mid-afternoon for the callback from Gloria Jean’s Guest Relations, who listened to my story without trace of interest or empathy, then told me it would have to be referred back to the store. I duly gave the details of the store – and clarified that I was not in Brisbane – and I was told they would be in touch.

Thursday passed without incident – other than a run-in with Chatty Dad on the tram, and no sighting of the Greek goddess and her Lesbosnian friend I had observed with such fascination on Monday. That meant at least no chance of offending any fellow commuters with the tinny bleed from my iPhone bud headphones. Chatty Dad delivered a monologue that lasted a full twenty to twenty-five minutes, until the fortuity of a car accident on Brunswick St and Johnston St meant I had to disembark and catch the Nicholson St tram.

There was no phone call from Gloria Jean’s Liberty Towers.

Friday

I contemplated my approach. I considered mustering the confidence I’d once strived to summon in a previous life, cold-calling to businesses to sell advertising space in a magazine supplement, or background music (“in-store environments”). I imagined I would ask them to call Sydney for me, if they tried to get me to phone again. I imagined bad-mouthing them to whatever small number of customers they might have in store this late on a muggy, sticky Friday afternoon. I imagined pulling out the receipt which totalled the amount I’d paid, but didn’t list the syrup in the first place.

I saw a familiar face when I entered. I thought he was the manager. Then again, he could have been the one who fobbed me off last time I was there.

“Are you the manager here?” I asked, as coolly as I could.

“No, there’s no manager today,” he said, with a sideways glance to his colleague. The other guy came over.

“Are you the duty manager here?” I asked. I had taken the syrup bottle out of my backpack now, and placed it on the counter.

“That’s OK,” he said. “Just take another.” He pointed me toward the shelf. I almost missed a beat. He must have been told. He knew, but he hadn’t called to invite me in. He had hoped I’d go away.

I took the bottle, checking to make sure it was the regular one. “Thanks,” I said, as I left. I didn’t add that I wouldn’t be back.

On my way to the tram stop, I patted myself on the back for taking it to them. For persisting, even though I shouldn’t have needed to. They thought I would just go away. They were wrong.

Everybody needs good neighbours

Friday night we were invited to dinner at our recently arrived neighbours over the road. Nice Guy Dave and his wife (Not The Kind Of Girl You’d Marry – her nickname for herself, not mine) invited The Architect and his family over as well, and we had a good time, with plenty of food, and good conversation. Turns out Nice Guy Dave works for an affiliate of my employer – I’m his boss, in his words – and we share a similar interest in not just photography, but subject matter.

Our iPods would get on well together too, with a soundtrack of a-Ha, The Dandy Warhols, some Stones, and Bruce:

“I come from down in the valley, where mister, when you’re young, they bring you up to do like your daddy done”

Nice Guy Dave even told me how he quoted Poison’s Bret Michaels on his wedding day, and that scored him a permanent place in my good books. No, the song wasn’t Talk Dirty To Me, or Look What The Cat Dragged In, but I’m afraid the large amount of 2004 Melbourne University cabernet sauvignon I consumed has eliminated the details of our exchange.

Seems Nice Guy Dave is an Apple / iPhone fan as well, and when I got into enthusing about Sleep Cycle, The Architect claimed it had to be a scam – how could it work? I explained that I didn’t know how, and reiterated my life philosophy of “perception is reality,” but still he wasn’t satisfied. I had the good sense to know which fights I could win.

There was more I wanted to tell you, really there was. But if you’ve got this far, and enjoyed the experience, my work is done for now. Until next time, thanks for joining me.

Thursday, March 4

For the last two or three days I have been making copious notes of writing ideas – via email on the iPhone, since my memory is so limited due to my music collection, the Notes app doesn’t really operate properly. I don’t have time to edit the notes into a cohesive form, since I’m committed to getting at least six, maybe seven hours sleep tonight (before day 3 of C25K tomorrow), but I wanted to at least share with you the images I captured today:

First

Yesterday was the first day of the month. The first day of a new season. It was also the first day of four weeks Financial Services Tier 2 training for my new role. I chose to make it my first day using the C25K app too. When I woke, instead of my normal coffee and downtime online, I plugged in the iPhone and set off to a playlist I had programmed the night before – starting with Tina Turner’s The Acid Queen, from the soundtrack to Tommy. I over-extended myself to the tune of Dead Kennedys Holiday In Cambodia, just before the halfway mark, practically launching off the footpath across the road in some kind of imagined punk rock stage leap in the pre-dawn privacy. And I enjoyed finishing up to the sound of Dramarama’s Anything, Anything and Death In Vegas’ Dirt (Slayer edit).

It’s an amazing app – like having a personal trainer – and I’m very pleased to have firstly discovered it, and secondly chosen to use it. That in itself is worth celebrating. I ended up travelling 4.2km (according to Google maps), and I could feel it in my quads yesterday and this morning, and despite that, I’m looking forward to day two of the program tomorrow. I’m even thinking of developing my upper body and shoulders, to avoid that Lurch-like arch. Shh, don’t tell.

Stop 37

I returned to my tram stop an hour later than my usual time, since training is from 9AM to 5PM Monday to Friday. I was back in with the rats again, no longer was I on the fringe, taking the City Loop train with the early bird tradies in their fluoro vests.

A slender metrosexual fella with long blonde hair and a quietly anguished look took his place near me at the stop. I wondered if his pained expression was related to the blood trickle from a shaver cut on his jawline. I saw a packet of Drum tobacco in his shirt pocket.

A woman in a stylish black suit, wearing a black Chanel bag and black A|X backpack came up next. Her nails were manicured, but her look was let down by hideous though probably highly fashionable black wedge heels. She was joined by a female friend wearing jeans, a sleeveless jumper, and thongs. The glamour queen tossed her head and her mane back to LOL, and I saw good teeth, with no fillings to note.

The first tram came and I let ’em all take it. Tramtracker told me the next one was two minutes away, and it was a double. Space for me to compose, reflect, breathe. Where would I be without my iPhone apps?

Academy girls

I sat opposite two Mary Immaculate girls sharing iPod headphones the way girls do; one bud in one ear of each listener. Both of them wore braces, and one of them had the word “hello!” written on her knee in ball-point. Above the other knee, the word “genius”.

Mrs H has been beset by some illness, something more than a virus, which necessitated a visit for her to the local clinic over the weekend, and ensuing blood tests, which may or may not indicate something like chronic fatigue syndrome (not surprising), if not something worse. True to our tendency to first imagine the worst option, once I faced the irony of losing my life partner prematurely – just as I started to get my work life together - I recalled going to bed on Sunday night imagining an eligible successor for Mrs H, and not wanting the girls to have a wicked stepmother.

As my tram continued down Brunswick St, and the Mary Immaculate girls disembarked, I noticed the new occupant facing me wore black Havaianas and glittery red painted toenails.

Next to me, a geekboi with a goatee and acne (despite being too old for the latter), was bent over his phone playing what looked to be some kind of world domination game.

On the wall of Venus Envy, two sparrows fought over a scrap of territory, and the morning shadows were heavy on the Ever Fresh graffiti wall – making me again regret not carrying my SLR. Bon Jovi’s It’s My Life shuffled on, and as I watched Technoir passing by and enjoyed the fact that it was named after the nightclub in The Terminator the way I always do, Dr Jon sang, “like Frankie said, I did it my way”, and I remembered someone telling me they misheard the line as, “like Frankenstein, I did it my way”. I had much to smile about.

After three spins of It’s My Life I shuffled forward to Happy Mondays’ Loose Fit, and spied a fellow passenger wearing foundation too dark for her skin, leaving a line on her jaw much like a mask. Part of me always wants to tell these unfortunates, and I like to think it’s a type of public service, even though I know it’s more to do with a rescue fantasy.

Now I was compulsively checking my Swiss chronograph – after winding it forward three days to change the date. I had misplaced it in the morning, and panicked when it was not on my bedside table. I always put it closest within reach, so that when I wake up at whatever ungodly hour it may be, I can check the time and determine whether or not it may be appropriate to get out of bed. I was relieved when I found it had somehow ended up lost in the sheets. I didn’t want to be late, on my first day in training, with different hours.

I am Superman

The tram approached King St and I stepped up to pull the cord to the tune of R.E.M.’s I Am Superman. As the tram caught me off-balance, I narrowly avoided giving my fellow commuter an unsolicited lap dance.

I went past the old workplace, past the rubbish bins still waiting to be returned to the stinking fire escape where I had dragged them out for collection over so many nights, indelibly etched into my memory.

I went to drop off a pair of trousers for drycleaning, and as I exchanged pleasantries with a former colleague, a guest looking like the typical kind of thug rapist who stayed there on weekends approached the counter and asked, “If we didn’t sleep in our room, can we get our money back?” It was the kind of question I would have heard when I worked there too. Nothing had changed. It was the place where nothing ever would.

Back on King St a derelict woman with spiral Afro wearing a red tracksuit from an op shop carried a suitcase held together by a strap, with a fag dangling from her lip, and struggled across the street, passing two chromers with lips silver like surfers.

I had more to tell you, but I have to go now. Thanks for being here.

be careful what you wish for

I reached a momentous point in my life this week, and I wanted to document it. For the first time in my 17 year work life – and roughly equal number of workplaces (an average of one per year, it’s true) – I received a promotion. The job itself is not important, for this piece. What I wanted to record was my emotional and mental state at this time.

As I left the house yesterday morning, the words that came to mind were “neurotic”, “anxious” and yes indeed, “febrile” (as in, “nervous energy”). I could not help noticing that iTunes Genius selected The Killing Moon, by Echo and The Bunnymen as I walked down our street to the station in the dark. As I passed one house, the sensor lights automatically switched on, and I flinched the same way I do every morning. It’s a reflex.

“Fate, up against your will”

Ian McCulloch intoned, and I found myself gravely concerned about the end of life. I saw myself as a lonesome traveller in the dark; I had to leave Littlest Miss H alone on the couch, first watching Cinderella; then Finding Nemo. She had wrapped her arms around my arm as I sat next to her to eat my WeetBix, and each time I wanted to take a mouthful I had to extricate myself from her embrace.

I was stepping forward, my teeth were gritted, I was grimly determined. I already feel overwhelmed with the enquiries I receive in my current role, and I’m about to expand my knowledge base and responsibilities. I reflected on the wisdom of those who advise to be careful what you wish for.

As the City Loop train passed from Flinders St station to Southern Cross, I looked out the window at the lights on King St, next to The Grand Hotel and from the carriage I felt like a ghost observer, already dead, and I thought about my previous job, working as Night Manager just up the block on King St, and I thought about my dreams as yet unlived, and unfulfilled. The dream of filmmaking, my experience and knowledge of Melbourne by night, that is not dead. That dream will not die.

I emerged from the underground Flagstaff station to Sugar’s The Act We Act, and I was walking like a zombie, in slow motion, my feet heavy in my Colorado boots. The same boots I wore on location in South Africa all those years ago, working as Second Assistant Director on a German telemovie. The time I had sunk a lot of our money into trying to reclaim my happy childhood life in Africa, and merge it with my desire to work in film. I was fired from the crew, because – in the words of Paul Westerberg – “they said I had an attitude”.

Magnapop’s Slowly Slowly blistered on afterward as I walked through Flagstaff Gardens, and it brought to mind again nights on King St working at the short-lived XS nightclub; oh yeah, I was thinking of all my failures past, it was a gloomy retrospective late late show, all the low points of my life flashing before my eyes on my deathbed. And all this, because I had secured a job that I wanted!

There was a ghost tree dividing the path before me. As I walked on, a pile of vomit was splattered in front of a park bench on the path. I could imagine the reveller or junkie sitting in that seat, leaning forward to hurl his or her guts out. A silhouette passed me by with a small orange spot glowing before his bent head, and I smelled cigarette.

Up on the seventh floor, the lights weren’t on yet. It was not yet 6:30AM. I was first in the building. I was ready for the change. Training starts on Monday.

Clifton Hill station, platform 2

another high UV day in the CBD

The Discreet Charm Of The Bohemian (part one)

I feel I must apologise for diverting from this blog’s supposed focus on Melbourne in all its visual glory and decay. In truth, this site was conceived as a way for me to express myself in another way than the raw cathartic form I had previously explored. I never intended to give away that style of writing – call it navel-gazing, self-absorbed, the thoughts and frustrations of an ordinary indebted Dad trying to make a better future; whatever you like. I’ll admit, it’s primarily for my benefit – but I hope to connect with you in some way in the process of doing it all the same. Which brings us to this post:

Valentine’s Day has passed for another year. Like many a male, I was never really a fan – favouring instead impromptu gestures of my affection, in keeping with my life philosophy of “first thought, best thought”. That all changed after my first Valentine’s Day with the woman who was to become Mrs H, when she arrived at my one bedroom flat in Prahran East with a big bunch of helium balloons, bottle of Amaretto and a card. Nothing was forthcoming from me in return. My excuse being something along the lines of my independent-minded non-sponsorship of the commercialisation of romance. Never again would I make that mistake. And this, our fifteenth Valentine’s Day together, was an especially enjoyable one for us. Seems things are turning for the better.

We had spent a good day together as family, and in the evening our neighbour came around to mind the girls, so Mrs H and I could make a rare outing as a couple again. We had decided to watch Up In The Air, and as we set off toward Carlton’s Cinema Nova, my co-pilot suddenly questioned our destination. She had thought we were going to Hoyts Norflands. So I pulled over a block from our house and consulted iPhone in vain for session times at that institution. Then, inspiration struck: I checked Palace Westgarth, and they had a 7PM session. Perfect.

We parked in Pearl St, parallel to High St, where I had to make a detour on the way to the cinema for a photo session motivated by the spectacle of a dumped Ford Festiva. Parking there on a Sunday summer’s afternoon took me straight back close enough to twenty years ago, when I first saw one of my favourite-ever films, Hal Hartley’s The Unbelievable Truth at the cinema formerly known as the Valhalla.

That fond memory made me think of other films I had enjoyed in the antiquated great hall of a cinema over the decades before its 2006 restoration and reincarnation as a Palace cinema… (I used to work with one of the daughters of the family which I believe still owns the building). Need I add that I never went there for the Rocky Horror Picture Show or Blues Brothers revivals (too popular for me, too cultish for elitist free-thinking serious young me…)

Quietly I found myself dreaming of a simpler time – the tastes of my formative adult years, simple joy over discovering the smell of coriander, watching Les Blank’s 1980 documentary Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers, basmati rice, wholefoods, henna hair dye, first exposure to feminism, existentialism, Jungian psychology, Naomi Wolf, indie pop (Clouds, Lemonheads, Falling Joys and Club Hoy, Club Hoy, Club Hoy), Glebe Point Road, drinking coffee black because I could, and more importantly, hope, self-belief, and determination to live a life without compromise.

As we bought our tickets and settled on a combo deal of two glasses of sparkling white and a large popcorn (even though I once worked with a former Village Cinemas manager who had begged me to never buy popcorn at the movies, on account of its grossly inflated margin) – well, the combo deal did save us three dollars – I quietly rubbed my foot on Mrs H’s calf as I gazed at the brunette with Chan Marshall bangs and a black T shirt serving us.

At a table for two we toasted our Valentine’s Day with plastic flutes, and Mrs H confirmed that she could see the attendant was my type, “She looks like she doesn’t want to be here, like she hates her life,” she smiled, and I laughed. On Friday night one of the parents from Little Miss H’s prep group had organised a family dinner at the Croc (Croxton Park Hotel) – most definitely not the kind of venue we’d normally choose to set foot in – and we’d had a good time there all the same. I had taken a photo of Mrs H, and I suggested she could use this photo for her profile picture on eHarmony.com.au. I suggested she could brand herself as a “newly single mum.”

“Newly bereaved mum,” she countered (and I hope she didn’t mean bereft)…

A friend of mine once observed that our exchanges are much like dialogue from a Hal Hartley film, and I took that as a tremendous compliment.

Time came for us to wind up our banter and we ascended to the first floor 150 seat cinema (site of the former balcony, where I had nodded off to narcoleptic late lamented River Phoenix in Private Idaho one lonely night in my misspent early days in Melbourne). No more creaky staircase up – I guess some would say the reincarnation of the Westgarth is uncalled-for; for me at least it’s not a Nando’s (there’s one of them newly opened over the road, regrettably).

So what of the film? Five stars for me. I’m very much one of the believers in George Clooney as the kind of star or actor who women want to watch and men want to be. I laugh just watching his expressions – and like I did when Mrs H and I watched Clooney teamed with Catherine Zeta-Jones in Intolerable Cruelty, I laughed so hard that I got told off.

This film’s story arc – of corporate downsizing specialist Ryan Bingham (Clooney), who finds himself thrust headlong into just the kind of life-changing great unknown he so masterfully positions his subjects – brings to mind the modern male mind’s overriding desire to control, to imprint, and leave behind something of permanence (other than children), to live without compromise, and to be alone, but to have access to a partner of some kind, for support at times of need. Like Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro)’s motto in Michael Mann’s Heat, “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner,” Ryan Bingham has his backpack, which he imagines stuffed with all the things we collect in life – starting with all the little material things, then the car, the home – then, heaviest of all, the people we trust with our “most intimate secrets…” He goes on to state that relationships are “the heaviest components” in our life – “all those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises.”

It’s true there have been many heavy experiences in the backpack I carry – and I have shared that burden with Mrs H by rights or not over the years. But the backpack is getting lighter.

Thanks for being here with me. I hope you enjoy the next instalment…